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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134474">Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriamithril/pseuds/moriamithril'>moriamithril</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A concerned and chivalrous Pippin, A little canon divergent, A nice kiss :), F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, but not by much</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:53:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134474</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriamithril/pseuds/moriamithril</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A journey far from home leads you to love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peregrin Took/Reader, Pippin Took/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pippin’s lips quirked into a crooked, awkward smirk, curls bouncing a bit as he shook his head. A green cloak of wool pooled around his neck, and daylight faded from behind the oak leaves ahead. The Golden Hour was occurring just through the tree canopy, hidden from company view. Or, rather, only yours and Pippin’s. Everyone, even Meraidoc, had forged their separate ways, for now. For <em> now</em>, you had to keep gently reminding yourself. All’s well, it is. It <em> has </em>to be.</p><p>“What are you shaking your head at me for, Peregrin Took?” you asked your old friend, feigning disapproval. You made sure to hide the fact that you had to draw your own cloak around your arms; you didn’t want to appear weak. Pippin had hardly complained at all.</p><p>“Hobbit’s aren’t quite made for this sort of thing, are we?” he said, voice soft and concerned, like the trees might hear him. “Lest a <em> lady </em>hobbit, at that.”</p><p>“That’s a rich thing for a Took to say,” you quickly admonished, letting your pace pick up, which only aided in the action of wrapping your cloak around yourself more tightly. Pippin’s footing fell a bit behind yours, but he joined you so that you remained two abreast along the darkening path. “Given your cousin’s reputation. <em> More </em> than one cousin, might I add, one of them being a <em> lady </em>hobbit.”</p><p>“I meant no harm!” he said in an injured tone, head swiveling between watching his feet over the roots and your profile. “I only meant...I mean, we haven’t got any <em> food</em>, Gandalf is gone, we haven’t got Merry, either; there’s no one here to look after you but me.” His face fell, exposing what appeared to be shame.</p><p>You stopped in your tracks, feet instantly beginning to pulse. They begged you to sit, to relieve them of the tireless walking. But there was no forest litter, no kindling for a fire. No food to cook over it. Your pack was ransacked all but for a change of clothes, a smoking pipe snapped in two, and a bladder of water that was nearing empty. Night nipped at your heels, and the moon was full. You’d rather it be new and dark; you did not wish to see the Orcs that sought you ought. You’d rather be consumed by them in the dark, not seeing their teeth.</p><p>You and Pippin ought to be before a roaring fire now, not a weak, smoldering thing meant to stay small to hide from enemies. Not against rocks but in rocking chairs, in the safe confines of the Shire. Peregrin Took had eyes for you once upon a time, you in a summer dress of white eyelet lace, nasturtiums in bloom and the air filled with their spice as music played somewhere softly in the background. You should be dancing, bellies full of meat and bread and ale. Your belly was woefully empty, your dress hung behind an old, wooden door at home. Itchy slacks torn at the knees, rolled to your ankles and buckled and cinched at the waist with an old belt would have to suffice, both of your creamy white blouses now the color of earth. You remembered the way his eyes had looked when you insisted on joining their journey, some strange mixture of elation and fear. This was not how you meant to spend your first night with Pippin. But, feeling like Gandalf’s wisdom had unwillingly seeped into your heart, you thought, ‘but what proper adventure goes as planned?’.</p><p>“You’ll do just fine, Peregrin,” you murmured, grateful the shadows lingering hid your expression. He seemed to draw in a breath and hold it there, and you gathered your hood in your hands and brought it over the crown of your head. “Now let us find someplace to sleep.”</p><p>“Aye, my lady.”</p><p>“Stop calling me that,” you scolded, but you felt your cheeks burn a little, having little to do with the chilling winds. “Is that what I get for calling you by your full name?”</p><p>“No, it isn’t,” he replied, voice hushed now, accent strong, suiting the time of day. “I like it when you do.”</p><p> </p><p>❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦</p><p> </p><p>“This’ll have to do, I suppose,” Pippin remarked wearily, groaning a bit as he drooped against a particularly rocky boulder. He patted the ground beside him, offering you a grin of forced-cheerfulness. </p><p>After a very piteous meal of foraged berries of some sort, all together far too small and tart without puff pastry and sugar and loads of butter to accompany them, you let your legs give way beneath you as you sat at Pippin’s side. </p><p>“I’m sorry dinner was so awful,” you lamented, uncaring how disheveled you were. Months ago you would have been positively mortified for Pippin to see you in such a state. You’d been banking on him asking you to marry him, and a proposal with soot on your cheek and dirt beneath your bed of nails didn’t feel likely. A first kiss with leaves in your hair and acorns lining your pocket. To lay with him, death at the door, no flowers creeping over the threshold. </p><p>“Oh, hush, now,” he insisted, letting his head fall back against the rock carefully. “It’s best we could do, and you did the work.”</p><p>You let the tip of your boot tap the little circle of rocks he’d created, engulfing the tiny fire crackling with damp wood. Only the occasional gusts of wind that fed it air kept it alive. </p><p>“You started a fire,” you breathed, your voice barely audible as you tried to keep quiet in the dangers of the night. Oh, the poetry of it, not so unlike the verses behind the leatherback books that lined your shelves at home. Home, you thought. How angrily you’d missed the comfort of it, and despite lingering hunger and discomfort, how strange it felt to have felt the homesickness ebb away. Instead the thought of being parted from Peregrin struck you with panic, even parting ways on the road to return to either side of the river. Home might be a foreign concept to someone like the wandering Gandalf, but it was everything to you. Your hand twitched and you desperately fought the urge to wrap your fingers around Pippin’s, to grasp onto the truest home you had. </p><p>“I know we really ought not have one,” he admitted, voice a bit rough and he attempted to keep quiet. “But it's a simple comfort, really.”</p><p>“Aye,” you agreed. “It is. Peregrin?” Pippin hummed, a delicate and resonating sound that filled your ears and your heart, and expanding warmth spreading inside your chest. “Do you think we’ll make it back?” </p><p>His eyes were bright in the firelight, and he smiled. It seemed to come naturally to him, it wasn’t forced or filled with worry. His gaze seemed to shut out the realm beyond, focusing only on you. Your heart was beating and it was becoming difficult to breathe, but you did not look away. </p><p>“I do,” he replied. “I think I best do something, though, just in case we don’t.”</p><p>“What’s that?” </p><p>He smiled again, a determined, final thing, and his rather warm hand cupped your cheek, the one covered in soot. Instinctively you dropped your knees, giving him room to lean over and press his lips against yours. It was cold and hard in the world beyond the Shire, not as green and lush but barren and vast. The ground was unforgiving beneath you and Peregrin Took transported you to someplace soft and safe and very warm as he kissed you. The column of his nose brushed against yours as he pulled away, only slightly as to look at you. </p><p>“We’ll go back home someday,” he vowed, “but we’re a rather safe than sorry lot, aren’t we?”</p><p>You nodded, letting him pull you back against his mouth as he kissed you again. </p><p>
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